Lobby-us

An Inconvenient Truth didn’t provide many answers to the gnawing question, “What can I possibly do?” The We Campaign, launched by Al Gore this past spring, is meant as a corrective. “We like to say: ‘Changing lightbulbs is good, but changing laws is better,’” says Brian Hardwick, the campaign’s communications director. “We’re missing an organization that brings people together to demand action.”

Gore himself contributed the initial seed money for the project, using his Nobel Prize award and profits from the film and its companion book. In all, the campaign expects to spend $300 million (much of it raised privately) in the next three years. A large national advertising campaign is already underway, but the focus of the next 12 months will be on building the We community’s “space,” by providing a grab bag of online networking tools and practical advice on how to press for change at a local policy level. For example, strategies for lobbying local power companies to provide green energy. Hardwick stresses that the campaign isn’t just about clever ads: It will live or die by how actively people get involved.

THE WE WEBSITE asks users to nominate the next pairs of talking heads in a series of ads on climate change called “Unlikely Alliance,” which feature two figures on opposite sides of the political spectrum.

HERE ARE SOME WE WOULD LOVE TO SEE:

White Spy and Black Spy

Soulja Boy and Ice-T

Keith Olbermann and Bill O’Reilly